


Small Mercies

by SteveCaster



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-04-07 23:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19094842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteveCaster/pseuds/SteveCaster
Summary: A deserted planet holds a disturbing secret.





	1. Chapter 1

02:46

Keep walking. Not too fast. Breathe.

The last of the drinkers leave the taverns and the narrow street fills. The stink of cheap liquor. The man staggers in front of me. Scarred and reeling he slurs his words.

I try to move round him. Others come towards me.

 

02:47

One of the man's friends blocks my path. I am left with the choice. Try to force my way past them or head into a side alley.

This time I choose... I choose... I cannot concentrate. What's changed?

Frantically, I search for a clue.

Someone who shouldn't be there, an open window, an extra flickering torch.

Just as the first blow lands I see it: a streak of blue on a white door.

They begin to throw things at me. Rocks, bottles -whatever they can find. Some find their mark and leave me cut and bleeding. Others miss, smashing windows. The riot is beginning.

Desperately, I lunge towards the door, ignoring the pain; pushing thick set men aside.

 

02:48

A flash. 

I make my final, futile action. I duck.

Agony blossoms in my right leg.

What's changed? It's difficult to think now. My vision is blurred and I can feel the end coming.

Cold ground batters me.

I see blood spreading on the road.

 _Please, no more._ I whisper.

 

**********

 

02:46

I look again at the clock. Not long now. The final cycle has begun.

My position is different, I think. Maybe I was at street level last time.

It always ends this same way.

The alley of a hundred deaths.

A hundred? A thousand? It doesn't matter. It always ends the same way.

I've given up looking for differences.

 

02:47

I can see him clearly now. The disturbance has begun.

He'll make his way to the white door.

The cold metal rests uncomfortably against my shoulder.

Idly, I wonder what would happen if I refused to pull the trigger. Have I tried that before?

I resolve that, this time, I will not kill the man.

He is going through the last part of the sequence. The moments I have grown to hate. His last desperate stumble towards the door.

The riot begins. Objects are being throw everywhere.

Noise. Chaos.

 

02:48

The man lies dead on the street.

I didn't mean to kill him.

I wonder if something thrown by the mob knocked the rifle and caused it to fire.

Or maybe I pulled the trigger.

It doesn't matter. 

It always ends this way.

____


	2. Chapter 2

A boy, no more than 12, approached the old woman who stood silently staring into middle distance. They were in a large dark hall. Perhaps, long ago, it had been a cathedral, magnificent, imposing. But now the ancient, crumbling columns leaned precariously and huge patches of the roof had fallen away. If he was to glance upwards, he would have seen the night sky spiraling away into infinity and the end of time itself.

However, he did not look up. Having spent the last four hours clambering through the wasteland, sand flicking his eyes like a thousand needles, he wanted shelter and answers. Once, in the forgotten shrine, he thought he had seen movement, a man collapsing, but he knew nothing lived on the planet. How could it? The toxic air and soil ensured nothing could survive here.  What had passed for civilization had been reduced to dust. It was all grey sand now; everything was dead. 

Except Bedisa.

He was reluctant to disturb her but his patience was growing thin.

"Come, stand with me, Freyan." Obediently, he moved to her side.

"Tell me. What do you see?"

Freyan peered into the distance. Nothing caught his eye. Just the remains of the temple's wall and miles of desolation.

"There is nothing. Sand. Emptiness."

Bedisa seemed displeased.

"No. You look but don't perceive. Look again."

Frayan sighed inwardly and stared more intently. He had tried Bedisa' meditations many times and had grown tired of them. However, he knew she would not be easily distracted. Letting his mind clear, he looked again; trying to see through the sands, the storms, the black. 

There, just at the edge of his mind he saw ... movement.

Travellers were coming.


	3. Chapter 3

"Over there looks promising," shouted Blake over the howling wind.  
Avon looked unimpressed. Since they had arrived on the planet, they had been trying to find shelter. Each time they had made their way to a potential site, it had turned out to be nothing more than ruins. They stopped briefly, behind a huge block of masonry, to catch their breath.  
"Blake, what's the last thing you remember?"  
"You were working near the teleport bay. I came to see if you needed any help. I remember the teleport activating and then I must have lost consciousness. When I came round I was on this planet."  
"Yes, I thought so. That's what I remember too. There's just one extra detail which I'm unsure of. Were you standing in the actual teleport area when it activated?"  
Blake shook his head.  
"No, I wasn't either."  
"Could the teleport have malfunctioned?"  
"Unlikely. Which leaves only a -"  
"GET DOWN!" Blake yelled shoving Avon to the floor.  
Frantically, Blake rolled and leapt to his feet, preparing to fight. Mid-swing he stopped and looked around in confusion.  
"There was a man," he began, "behind you _here_. He had an old fashioned rifle and he was aiming straight at you."  
Avon looked up brushing the sand from his face and hair.

"Thank you for saving my life," he said sardonically. 

 

****************

02:46

I am too weary now. I wonder if I have walked this path before.

I think I have.

Slowly, the memories come back to me. Half glimpsed shadows of events yet to occur. 

My mind orders my legs to stop. 

I try to force myself to choose a different street.

I try to collapse but my legs stubbornly refuse.

Onward I walk. 

And now, inevitably, I know what awaits me at the end of the lane.

But knowledge does not slow my terminal march.

I look about me, knowing it will change nothing.

The drunk men emerge from the pub, The Glorious President. My mind fills with pain, yet the end has not come.

 

02:47

This time I just stand. I don't know why I am no longer moving.

Blows rain down on my head.

I fall.

I don't try to protect myself.

I know what's coming.

I hear a noise.

Laughter.

As blood pours from my lips I laugh freely.

Hysterically.

 

02:48

Finally, the flash. 

Not long to wait now.

No words this time.


	4. Chapter 4

"They approach so slowly," muttered Freyan.

"You may choose to aid their progress," answered Bedisa.

"It is my decision to make?"

"Only you, Freyan, can manipulate the sands. You know that."

"Yes but will I choose to help them?"

"I cannot tell."

"No, you never do," Freyan paused, thinking hard. "I choose to help them."

He lifted a hand and half closed his eyes. The sands in front of him began to swirl, leaping energetically, colliding and splitting. The wind rose in a deafening crescendo and then suddenly, silence. The violent storm continued all around them but there was no noise at all.

Now, the scene began to change. No longer was the storm moving particles randomly. Objects were changing by design. Rocks were picked up, as if by some giant hand, and placed one on top of the other. Only now they weren't rocks but bricks. Chunks of masonry flew into the air and connected to the ancient pillars.

But changes were happening elsewhere too. The sky was no longer an oppressive black. Instead,  wonderful pinks, reds and orange hues were growing in the east. The planet warmed as a long forgotten sunrise burst forth.

Where once was death, vitality and life erupted. 

Freyan stood back, smiling. 

"Do you remember this time?" he asked.

Bedisa nodded, "Yes, but it was never meant to last."

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Shading his eyes from the bright sun, Blake surveyed the scene. Quiet moorland stretched into the distance and behind him he could hear the gentle wash of waves breaking on a rocky shore. Warm sunlight played on his face and a gentle breeze ruffled his hair. He smiled and took a long deep lungful of air, relishing its taste. After the recycled atmosphere of the Liberator, it was like fine wine.  
"Over there looks promising," he said and began to move off towards a distant building.  
Avon glanced in the direction Blake had gone and narrowed his eyes.  
"Unlikely. It doesn't look like the handiwork of an advanced society, Blake."

"The people who live there may be highly advanced. Now come on."  
"Yes. Perhaps the architect was having a bad day," muttered Avon. "Blake, what's the last thing you remember?"  
"I came to see if you needed any help in the teleport section. There was a flash and I woke up here. I assume the teleport malfunctioned. You?"

"Pretty similar. Except, I don't think it could have been the teleport. I was not working on any active circuits."  
"So how did we get here?"  
Avon drew breath to answer and then stopped short. Blake turned to see what Avon was looking at and his eyes grew wide. A short distance ahead the air close to the ground was shimmering. But this was no ordinary heat haze for inside it, more imagined than real, was a figure. As they approached, Blake realised the image was repeating the same macabre motions. The scene grew more defined the closer they got. Now Blake could see that the figure was a crouching man, covering his head as if to protect himself from attack. He grew weaker, reacting to a hundred invisible blows, until a dark spot of blood radiated across his chest and he collapsed. Dead.

Blake watched with a kind of morbid fascination as the scene reset and played out time after time. Slowly, he began to notice subtle changes in the man's actions. Sometimes the figure would take half a pace forward, other times he would lash out at his invisible attackers. Yet there was always the same outcome. 

Avon walked through the image to see it from a different angle.

"Blake, look at his face."  
Blake moved round next to Avon and stopped. 

" _What?_ " he breathed incredulously.

"It's you," said Avon.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

"Why do you hold them in that future? Why don't you give them hope?" asked Freyan.

For a moment Bedisa seemed perplexed then turned to her young companion. "I do not hold them. They continue to kill and die because they must. There can be no rest without understanding. No change without acceptance."  
  
Freyan scoffed. "No one _must_ kill."

For a moment Bedisa remained silent. "Do you think a different setting would change the outcome? I do not decide their actions. I show what has to be," she turned to him and added more gently, "no matter how distasteful. Watch."

 

***************************

02.46

My head pounds. It feels like its been bathed in a pool of acid. My vision blurry, I try to make sense of what's happened. 

I no longer sit in a room with my gun, poised to fire.

Was I ever there, by the open window?

Was it imagined?

I think this place is new.

I am vaguely conscious of a noise but I cannot place it.

 

02.47

I look down and see I hold a different weapon in my hands. Slowly, my eyes grow accustomed to the glare of the lights and I see him.

The man is here. He is the same man. He is older, more weathered, but his features are the same. 

The noise continues, more insistent than ever. It is an alarm.

He mouths something at me. I cannot hear what he says.

A feeling I recognize sweeps over me.

I look into the man's eyes as I raise the gun. 

 

02.48

He lies dead.

I know what is coming next.

As darkness consumes me, the scene begins again.


	7. Chapter 7

Blake and Avon entered the cathedral, their footsteps echoing in the silence. They had been quiet after seeing the vision of Blake, each lost in his thoughts. Blake was reluctant to take it at face value but it certainly raised a lot of questions and he hoped that this structure would provide some answers. He was disappointed to see that the place was deserted.

"We need to find a way to contact Liberator," Blake said.

"That will not be easy, Blake. Have you seen any form of technology since we arrived?"

Blake shook his head, frustrated.

"There must be something! Some reason why we ended up on this planet."  
  
"I'm beginning to think it had nothing to do with the teleport."

Blake looked across from a stone tablet he'd been inspecting.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, think about it Blake. I wasn't working on any relevant systems and the teleport can't activate itself. I think it's much more likely that we were brought here by someone or something."

A whispering sound caught Blake's ear and he motioned for Avon to be quiet. Gradually, the sound grew louder and two figures began to solidify in front of them. An old woman, wearing a dark emerald gown, stepped towards them. Her companion, a tired looking, dirty faced boy, smiled warmly as he caught his breath.

"You consented to come here. The sands asked and you answered," the woman said.

"Wait. I did not give any such permission. What sands? Who are you? What do you want with us?" asked Blake.

"I am Bedisa, this is Freyan. We want nothing from you. The two were chosen, the two must learn."

Avon sighed wearily, "Another set of riddles," he muttered. "What is your purpose?"

"I help those see what must be."

"And I manipulate the sands," said Freyan.

"You control them? You brought us here?"

Blake was about to ask more but, before he had drawn breath, a noise like a hurricane swept through the building. Masonry crumbled sending up huge plumes of dust. He tried to shout a warning to Avon but his voice was instantly lost in the wind. Debris flew everywhere. Avon looked up to see a huge section of roof break free and begin to fall. Desperately, he tried to dive out of the way but he knew he could not make enough ground. He prepared himself for the inevitable agony.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the wind died and the stones crumbled. The blocks which would have crushed Avon lay in tiny pieces around him. The four were in the ruined shell of the cathedral surrounded by sand.

"I remember sand," said Blake uncertainly.

"Yes. When you first arrived this was your time," answered Freyan. "I saw that you were struggling so I changed the sands to when the planet was young."

"I saw... a vision in the sand. Someone tried to kill Avon,"

"That was the beginning of your lesson. Though, in that place, it was not Avon who was threatened," said Bedisa. "I have shown you the event in different settings. I do not know what you are to understand. I only know what must happen."

 

Blake and Avon exchanged glances. The images they had witnessed all led to same outcome. Blake's death.

"I'm not sure I believe in fate," said Blake. "But supposing that I accept who you are, is there any way to change that future?"

"To change that which is foretold, first you must gain understanding."

A flash of lightning lit up the sky and an image appeared before Blake. It was him walking along a lane. Soon he was surrounded by thugs, kicking and punching him.

As he watched the scene, Avon tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to a ruined bit of wall. Atop the rampart stood the image of a lone figure aiming a rifle.

Avon. 

 


	8. Chapter 8

As Blake's image crumpled in front of him, he rounded angrily on Bedisa.

"Alright, you've made your point. I die. Why keep showing me this? Are you saying Avon kills me?"

"I reveal the moments preceding your death. This man will be your undoing," she answered calmly.

Avon stood silently watching his own image. It held the gun steadily. He could not read the expression on his face but it certainly did not look like that of a man who had murdered his friend. He caught himself grimacing, was that true? Blake was a friend? He played with the idea for a few moments in his mind.

Avon spoke, as much to himself as anyone, "Well now, it seems that the question is not why will this happen but what can we learn from it? What must we understand?" he smiled, "should we wish to prevent it?"

"Yes," answered Bedisa. "That is what you both must answer."

Freyan raised his arms. "I cannot hold the sands for much longer. They will shift again soon. I will return you to when you should be."

The young boy's form began to fade as sand started to swirl. The barren planet slowly vanished, replaced with something more familiar. 

Blake looked around the teleport section. Avon sat working on a circuit board, laser cutter poised to make a connection. Their eyes met,  both wondering if what they had experienced had been real.

Without a word, Blake left to find Gan and the others.

 

**************************************************************************

02:47

Alarms are blaring. Orac should have overridden them. This was supposed to be a quiet infiltration.

The man standing in front of me is Blake. Older, more gnarled but without doubt, Blake.

"He sold us, Avon. All of us. Even you," Tarrant tells me. 

Blake wants to convince me of something. He says that Tarrant doesn't understand.

I don't either. Does Blake understand? Does he have some scheme to prevent what's about to happen? If he would tell me, I could change the future.

"I set all this up!" he says.

My head is spinning. What does he mean? How am I to learn from that?

I have a vague notion of having seen this moment before.

 

02:48

I raise my gun and shoot.

Blake is wounded.

I fire twice more and he collapses

Dead.

As the others fall, I am aware of federation troops surrounding me.

I have learned nothing. I still don't understand. Even now, at the end.

But this time, I know the scene will not reset. Perhaps Blake did not want me to understand. Perhaps the old freedom fighter was exactly that, too old to make a difference.

A smile touches my lips as I raise my weapon again.


End file.
